From the World Socialist Website:

What Edward Snowden has revealed

...The fury with which the political and media establishment has responded to the leaks reveals its justifiable concern that with each new revelation, the legitimacy of the American government and the entire state apparatus is further undermined—at home and abroad. The ruling class is driving toward a police state, but it does not yet have one. It fears for the stability of its rule....

...On the one side stands the financial aristocracy, which, in its social instincts and political outlook, is authoritarian. It looks on the population as a whole as a hostile force, and every citizen as a potential enemy. And with good reason. The corporate and financial elite is well aware that the policies it is pursuing are deeply unpopular.

The aim is to intimidate and blackmail an entire society. As Snowden noted, after the state has gathered, on a permanent basis, data from everyone, "You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with."

Such methods will be employed against any and all political opposition. With the information it has already assembled, the government can readily construct a detailed social and political profile of nearly every individual in the United States.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/11/pers-j11.html


Who Rules America?

Obama presides over a country in which the president can—and does—unilaterally order the extra-judicial assassination of people all over the world, including US citizens; where entire cities, such as Boston, can be placed under de facto martial law; where the government seizes the phone records and emails of investigative journalists; where those who expose US war crimes, such as Private Bradley Manning, are tortured and prosecuted for treason; where the president can order alleged terrorists to be detained indefinitely and without trial in military prisons....

Congress and both of the major political parties serve as rubber stamps for the confluence of the military, the intelligence apparatus and Wall Street that really runs the country. The so-called "Fourth Estate"—the mass media—functions shamelessly as an arm of this ruling troika.

The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most "outspoken" critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" program by pledging his support to the "war on terror" and denouncing leaks of classified information.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/06/10/pers-j10.html